


living forever

by BlackCats



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7317025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of answering her question, Azami looked to the blue of the summer sky, and said: “Are you afraid of death?”<br/>(Mary, Azami, and the endless world.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	living forever

“H-Here!” Mary blurted out, her hands trembling as she extended them to her grandmother. “Combining Eyes w-was…was your snake first, right? Don’t you want her back…?”

Azami craned her head to the side, scrutinizing Mary’s empty palms—the queen snake was not something to be passed along physically. At least, not here, not outside of the Haze. The sheer weight behind her red gaze made Mary shrink back a step.

 “They were _all_ my snakes, ‘first’,” she replied at length.

“I-I know,” Mary soldiered on, her eyes wide and earnest. “U-Um, I just thought you might want control of your world back? Since you made it for Mom and, ah, Grandfather, didn’t you?”

Azami was silent for so long that Mary heard herself repeating her question without meaning to.

“Didn’t you?” she said, a notch above a whisper.

Her grandmother sighed, the snakes in her hair roiling and twisting; the idea of having any wish, any power, at her beck and call was…staggering. A full-fledged Medusa like her could do anything, right? With Kuroha brought to heel, surely she had nothing to fear?

Instead of answering her question, Azami looked to the blue of the summer sky, and said: “Are you afraid of death?”

“H-Huh?”

“Death,” Azami reiterated, still staring sunward; it didn’t seem to blind her at all. “My blood in you doesn’t run as strongly as it does in your mother, but it’s there. You will live longer than any human. And so, I want to know, are you scared of death?”

_L-Longer than any…human…?_

She had guessed this, long ago, when she first realized snakes lived in her soul, in her past, inhabited her future, Seto—

An endless world where no one ever died.

Twining her fingers through her hair in short, anxious gestures, Mary shook her head. “I-I…I don’t want anyone to die. I don’t want to outlive my friends. But…!”

Azami looked directly at her.

Mary swallowed. “I want them to live happily! Even if it means we part someday, I don’t want them to be stuck someplace again. I…I don’t think humans were meant to live forever. And that’s…”

She placed her hand over her heart, trying to press her brave words straight into it.

“That’s fine,” she murmured, softly; it would take a long time before she truly meant it, but she would.

“…Heh. You’ve grown.” The smirk on Azami’s face was quite sudden, edged with the same sharpness as the scales stamped across her neck. She chuckled once, only shaking her head at Mary’s inquisitive blink.

“Enjoy the time you have with them. But don’t lock yourself somewhere once they’re gone.”

“Ah! O-Okay! But are you sure you don’t want the queen back?”

Azami had already turned to go. Mary knew she would return, someday, when her wanderings brought her to the city. Perhaps she wasn’t even going very far.

“Keep her. If anything should happen with _that one_ , it’d be better if she’s on hand.”

Mary shuffled forward a step. Two. Azami was walking, but she wasn’t done just yet, she had to—!

“W-Wait!”

“…What is it?”

“What happened, with the Haze…It…It wasn’t your fault.” She kept talking, kept speaking, even as part of her balked at the intensity of the Medusa’s stare. “Promise you won’t blame yourself...”

A bitter chuckle. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay,” Mary conceded. “J-Just…one more thing.”

Breathing in deeply, she put on her brightest, most sincere smile.

“Thank you, for giving me the queen…for saving me.”

Azami actually laughed, a tired sound, rare and true and real. “At least I did _one_ thing right.”

**Author's Note:**

> a thoroughly random drabble that may or may not actually make sense?


End file.
